They're completely different types of people. The holier-than-thou Brooklyn rich kid attitude is but magnified when coupled with the "hipster" agenda (or lack thereof). Portlanders, whether they have handlebar mustaches and fixed-gear bicycles or not, seem generally accepting of other people and kind-hearted.

I found people in Brooklyn to be super accepting and kind hearted every time I've been there. It's super neighborhoody, people are generally very friendly and those who live(d) there / hosted me knew the people on their block. I think the difference is that it's pretty out-there to pay $1200 for a 200 sq ft apartment that's advertised as a "charming fixer upper" in Portland where in Brooklyn that's the norm. Despite living in a good area in Brooklyn you still have to walk through or subway through shitty ones so you always have to be hyperaware of your surroundings in case someone tries to get stabby whereas that's not an everyday concern here in Portland. Even though Brooklyn is a lot less of a concrete nightmare as other parts of NYC it's FAR MORE urban than the lush landscape of Portland.

Hence Portland hipsters are more inclined to be laid back and friendly and kind to strangers. That's not to say cities are devoid of this but it feels as though once you get past the whole "get a job, get a rad place" aspect of Pdx your biggest concern is what beer to choose from the millions of options before you.

I hate editorials that write like certain cultures or movements were born / centralized in these specific locations. I got to the part about the person moving back to his parent's place in Brooklyn and realizing NY was full of young rich people with ambition while Portland was just lazy layabouts on holiday (and stopped there).

Nah dude, whenever I step outside my house in Brooklyn I notice all these wealthy ambitious people emulating the wealthy ambitious trust fund babies who inhabit the other Brooklyn! We invented the ironic mustache in our part of Portland and just let the rest of the hipsters borrow it.

I dunno. The author never says that Portland's young peoples' lack of ambition is a bad thing, and admitting people are much more wealthy back east seems to balance out any criticism. It's just the difference between trust-fund kids who want to be broke kids and actual broke kids who enjoy life despite being broke.

I find it funny that so many people found ways to be offended by this.

There are indeed quite a few hipsters in Brooklyn, and a lot of rich white people with kids. However, Brooklyn is HUGE. By itself, it would be the fourth largest city in the US. This article is talking about a tiny, tiny, extremely visible minority of Brooklyn, and ignoring most of the Borough.

The new hipster Russian Mob will run the old guys out of town. Only the most ironic car thefts and obscure illegal cab companies. They pimped out my sister before she was a whore. You've obviously never heard of that.

“‘Are we a generation driven by hippie values—minus acid, plus funding
and smart phones—that can create sustained change? Or are we just a
group of overprivileged, underexperienced, overconfident Bohemian
revivalists that are just trying to defer reality?’”

Sure we have alot of white people, we probably have a higher white to ethnic ratio compared to Brooklyn, but it's nowhere near "all white" in portland like this guy mentions multiple times.. this guy needs a boot in the face. And whats wrong with being environmentally conscious?

From a PDX-->NYC transplant I have to agree with the author. I don't feel that he's using "all white" in a literal sense but being transported back and forth between the two cities offers a striking view as to how white PDX is at it's core. Minus North PDX and the outer reaches of the suburbs PDX itself is fairly white.

Here's an article from last year that shows some of the issues at hand.

This is a guy you could imagine would be a young Wall Street exec or something but he’s making artisanal chocolate bars in Brooklyn.

And what a shame that is. You know, since Wall Street firms have so many open positions that they just can't seem to fill. Since our country is crying out for more Wall Street execs.

I'm really sorry that I'm white and I like certain kinds of food and I like to ride my bike and stuff. I'm really sorry that people find that so upsetting. But the quote above, to me, says so much. I'm not sure when our country decided that "hipsters" were the root of all evil, as opposed to Wall Street, which as an industry actually does cause problems and is partially responsible for the economic problems we're having. But I think it's pretty sad.

I flew in last night from spending a week in Brooklyn. I have friends over there, and visit several times a year. Portland and Brooklyn are very different places, and my friends would all tell you the same.

Funny thing: I am currently in the airport, about to fly back to Portland after a week in Brooklyn (Williamsburg, specifically). There were a lot of hipsters thereabouts, including one that got into an altercation with a garbage truck while I watched. It was pretty amusing.

No one really won...there was just a lot of shouting and flipping off on both sides. The garbage truck wanted to pull out into an intersection that the cyclist was waiting to turn in in order to back up, the cyclist eventually had to move out of the way, and then after picking up garbage, the truck tried to run over the cyclist again, and he had to move out of the way again. As the garbage truck drove off there was much shouting and middle finger.

I just want to say that we're not all like the Portland stereotype. I happen to work very hard and am very ambitious. Definitely not a hipster.

I get that Portland is known for being a hipster's paradise. Honestly, it's probably brought the city a new level of tourism and interest from the nation that we're all benefitting from. But I do get tired of the presumptions when I tell people that I live in Portland.

Hahaha, these comments. I mean, I live just outside of Portland, and I can take a dig at my hobbies of motorcycles being anti-environmental, coors light being disgusting, and my liberal views being naive. But someone light-heartedly makes a few hyperboles about portland's hipsterism, and people get all up in arms. C'mon guys, get over yourselves. This is the kind of thing the author is talking about; if you can't laugh at yourself, you're taking it way too seriously.

"One of Portlandia’s catchphrases is that it’s “where young people go to retire,” but that doesn’t fully capture it. Rather, think back to the moment when you realized you were grown up enough to buy candy whenever you wanted. Then imagine extending that phase indefinitely, for years."

"One of Portlandia’s catchphrases is that it’s “where young people go to retire,” but that doesn’t fully capture it. Rather, think back to the moment when you realized you were grown up enough to buy candy whenever you wanted. Then imagine extending that phase indefinitely, for years."

The rest of them apparently move back into their parent's place in Brooklyn, and proceed to call everybody in Portland a lazy slacker in some form of veiled self criticism.

Or they get an expensive rent in Brooklyn and become "ambitious" in a desperate and required attempt to pay for it.

I haven't lived with my parents since I was 18. That was almost ten years ago.